tissues long after they should have crumbled to dust. At his bedside Prairie stiffened and made a small sound-a single choked sob-and then she put her hand on my arm and gently but firmly pushed me away.
“This will only take a minute,” she said, and her voice was steady.
I retreated to the corner of the room. The single lamp created shadows across the scene before me, but I saw Prairie take the small bag from her purse, prepare the syringe and slip the needle into the skin between his fingers.
He didn’t react. I didn’t know if it should have hurt; it didn’t matter. Moments passed, Prairie’s shoulders stiff and unmoving. The thing that had once been Vincent did not move; its eyes did not blink.
At last Prairie turned away from the bed, and I saw that tears streaked her smooth face.
“It’s done,” she said softly, and we left the room for the last time.
Back at the house she and Anna had a quick whispered conversation and then Anna hugged her. I didn’t know what had been in the syringe; I did know that Anna, with her nursing school training and access to the hospital pharmacy, must have given her something deadly and hard to detect. Not that I was worried; I was pretty sure that no one would question the death of a nursing home patient whose very existence was still a mystery to researchers after all these years.
Kaz came into the kitchen carrying Chub upside down. Chub was giggling so hard his cheeks had turned bright pink. Anna took the plastic off a platter sitting on the kitchen table and I saw that she had made almond
“And I have a treat,” she said, her eyes dancing with excitement.
She ushered us out into the backyard and took a long, narrow box from her apron. Sparklers. I’d never held one before. Each of us-me, Prairie and Chub, his hand firmly enclosed in Kaz’s large one-held a sparkler to the lighter Anna produced from another pocket, and I gasped when the long wands burst into magnificent showers of dancing light. We laughed as the tiny pinpricks of heat bounced off our skin, and we trailed our sparklers through the night, writing our names in the air and making giant swirls and spirals.
At last, the final sparkler fizzled out and we were left in the dark once again. But there was a bright moon above us, and I could see Kaz’s smile, the one he saved just for me. Far in the distance I heard the echoing boom of fireworks, but when Kaz wrapped his arms around me, all I heard was his heart beating, strong and sure.
Much later, I was the only one still awake in the little house. I was sharing a room with Chub, listening to him sigh and murmur in his dreams while I stared out the window at the same silvery moon.
I didn’t know the future. I didn’t know who I would be tomorrow, but I had made peace with who I had been until now. I couldn’t change the past that had brought me this far, but I knew where I was now, in this moment. I was with people who loved me, other Banished who had made the long journey over time and distance and bloodshed and battle and loss. I was safe, loved and cherished. And it was enough.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sophie Littlefield also writes crime fiction and urban fantasy for adults. Her first novel about Hailey Tarbell,
